EbmMaj7b5 guitar chord
The third voice from the top lowered an octave. The dropped voice becomes the bass, which is why a string is skipped.
- Tap a note to hear it
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- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About EbmMaj7b5 — drop 3 voicings
EbmMaj7b5 is Eb, Gb, A and D — Ebm7b5 with the seventh raised a semitone.
It sounds brittle and impossible to mistake. Scarce enough that most players meet it as a passing sonority rather than as a chord they chose.
Rare tonic — a half-diminished chord with its seventh raised instead.
EbmMaj7b5 notes and formula
| Eb | Gb | A | D |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | ♭5 | 7 |
Also written EbmM7b5 or Ebm(maj7)b5. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play EbmMaj7b5
The same operation one voice further down: the third voice from the top falls an octave and becomes the bass.
That leaves a bigger hole under the top three notes, so a string gets skipped: the muted string in the middle is the shape, not a mistake.
EbmMaj7b5 has 9 of them, on strings 6-4-3-2 and strings 5-3-2-1, from open position up to the 13th — every inversion the chord has: Eb in the bass, Gb in the bass, Bbb in the bass and D in the bass. The one to learn first is the Gb shape at the nut.
5 of them sit on strings 6-4-3-2, so you can run the inversions up one set without changing strings — which is the whole reason to learn them as a family rather than as separate grips.
Play EbmMaj7b5 as a shell — root, third and seventh — and the spare string takes the 11 (Ab) or the b13 (Cb).
All 6 common shapes as fret numbers, lowest string first. Hover or tap one to see it drawn.
- xx1232, 1st fret, Eb, root position, top note Gb, all fretted
- x6x775, 5th fret, Eb, root position, top note A, all fretted
- x6777x, 6th fret, Eb, root position, top note Gb, barred
- 11-12-x-11-10-10, 10th fret, Eb, root position, top note D, all fretted
- 11-12-12-11-x-11, 11th fret, Eb, root position, top note Eb, barred
- x-x-13-14-15-14, 13th fret, Eb, root position, top note Gb, all fretted
What to play over EbmMaj7b5
Every note of EbmMaj7b5 is in Eb diminished.
Chords near EbmMaj7b5
Change one note of EbmMaj7b5 and you have Ebdim (drop the major seventh), Ebdim7 (the major seventh becomes the diminished seventh), Ebmaj7b5 (the minor third becomes the major third), Ebm7b5 (the major seventh becomes the flat seventh) or EbmMaj7 (the flat fifth becomes the fifth).
EbmMaj7b5 is a diminished chord — root, minor third, flat fifth. Diminished and half-diminished chords on every root.
The common shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in how this site is built.